Last week I participated in the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge, an annual event in Battersea Park that is now in it’s 34th year! The race is part of a series that takes in all of the major cities of the world culminating in a championship final for all of the best teams. This year Singapore is the championship host. Teams are made up from companies all over the UK (though mainly those which have staff in London) and I have captained the team for my employer for the last 3 years. This is an all-ability and the course is only 5.6km in total so it makes for a pleasant jog in the park if you can negotiate the crowds. This year’s event attracted over 25,000 participants from over 622 companies and has for the last few years been split over two evenings to accommodate the sheer numbers but even so, the 13,000 runners we had on Thursday night were still packed in pretty tight!

This is the first year that they have also introduced a wave start, grouping runners into time pens allowing the faster ones off in advance and gradually letting each group go in intervals. This has no bearing on times since it’s a fully chip-timed race which makes life a lot easier for the team captains who originally had to collate everyone’s times as reported by the runners themselves and since this year one company fielded over 1000 runners that would have been no mean feat!
In the end I managed the course in 26:00 exactly, which is shy of the 21:00 I was hoping for but to be honest I could comfortably do with shedding about half a stone at the moment! Anyways, marathon number 7 is this coming Sunday and is another off-road trail run so hopefully I’ll sweat a few pounds off then… Other than that, training is going ok – although probably a bit lax compared to earlier in the year but the plan is to go for a PB in Berlin in September as I have a six week gap between races so I can get some quality speedwork and distance runs back under my belt. As always, marathon report will be published a day or two after the race so see you next week.